PayBlok is a crypto-asset we’re introducing within the InstaSupply platform to incentivize B2B payments.
About InstaSupply
InstaSupply provides services and software that allow businesses to manage suppliers, track purchase orders and deliveries across their business, and match them to accounts payable invoices before they pay them. This enables the purchasing business to identify and reduce erroneous expenses and fraud, export the relevant data to their accounting systems, and then pay verified invoices with confidence. We also provide price management consulting, based on the data we have collected across multiple industries, which enables businesses to lock-in competitive prices from their supplier base. However, despite all the benefits and demonstrable cost-savings we can provide to businesses, selling them is an uphill struggle.
It’s a simple fact that selling software and processes to businesses is difficult. It always involves multiple stakeholders, multiple budgets, and the potential for extensive change management; and it may not always be obvious to them that they have problems in the spaces we provide solutions for. For all these reasons, it’s quite normal for us to face a sales cycle of anywhere between 3 months to 2 years, as we work to build relationships with a business and its suppliers alike. We are confident that any business that has to manage an extensive set of accounts payable invoices — particularly across multiple locations — will benefit from our secret sauce.
Providing Payments
From the outset InstaSupply has provided workflow management and spend analysis without providing an actual payments platform. This means businesses can manage their accounts payable invoices and even organise them into payment runs that represent a bulk payment to multiple businesses on a given date. However, those payments need to be made outside the InstaSupply platform either via the business’s bank (for which we can generate a payments spreadsheet file to upload) or some other means, such as direct debits or credit cards.
We hadn’t overlooked payments as a feature through choice, but simply due to the fact that finding a payment solution that suits all our customers and suppliers involved meeting an extensive list of requirements. We always knew that controlling payments for the businesses using our platform would provide significant advantages. For the buyer by allowing them to control and track payments in our payments run feature, allowing automation where required, and the potential for supply-chain financing to artificially extend payment terms; for the suppliers by providing automated notification of payment, remittance advice, fast-pay discounting, and invoice factoring; and for us by providing data on actual payments which we can use to update states in our workflow. Up until now, every payment solution we have investigated either had a regional, currency, or technological short-falling. Thankfully, we are now working on an implementation that overcomes those short-fallings and meets all of our requirements for both customers and suppliers alike. However, as with any new feature we introduce, we know we are going to have to provide some kind of competitive advantage over competing methods in order for it to become a must-have feature for new and existing customers alike. This is exactly what the PayBlok incentive provides:
PayBlok Incentives
PayBlok is an ERC-20 crypto-token for the Ethereum blockchain. We have designed it as a loyalty program, where tokens are rewarded for positive behaviours within our application, and are redeemable within the application at current market value. The first wave of rewarded behaviours will be (although percentages proposed for all user rewards are subject to change, according to market conditions):
Buyers are rewarded for paying invoices using InstaSupply and receives 0.5% of the total value of the invoice as Payblok in their wallet.
When an invoice is successfully paid early, and the whole transaction is settled before the invoice due date, both Buyer and Supplier receive Payblok into their wallet, corresponding to 0.5% of the original transaction.
Businesses referring other businesses will receive tokens for 1% of all payments that the new business processes during the first 6 months after the signup.
Businesses will be able to utilise the full value of their tokens when redeemed as discount against further payments. Alternatively, they will be able to sell the tokens for cash within the platform, minus a small exchange fee.
In addition, we will be providing supply-chain financing for buyers that need to extend their payment terms with suppliers, and invoice factoring for suppliers that need a more immediate return on their invoices. By positioning ourselves between buyer and supplier, we can ensure suppliers are paid as quickly as they require whilst also allowing the buyer as much time as they need.
Finally, as businesses build up a store of PayBlok, we will be able to provide asset-based lending using their stored PayBlok as collateral.
Purchase Tokens as Assets
If you’re interested in PayBlok, and want to find out more, you can explore the PayBlok website at:
https://payblok.instasupply.com.
In addition, you can find the PayBlok white-paper at:
https://payblok.instasupply.com/documents.html.